‘That day at the airport,’ I said. ‘She told me that you were an adult and you could do whatever you wanted, but if I did anything to drag you down or hold you back, she would ruin me.’
She was quiet for a long moment before she spoke again, voice low. ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’
‘I didn’t think I needed to. You saw her grab me by the collar. What else would she have been saying?’
Something about the line of her jaw changed. Her nostrils flared.
‘I’m sorry. I should have. But—’
‘No.’ Sadie sat up, twisting her hair up and tying it back severely in a bun on the back of her head. ‘No.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Not you.’ She leant down and kissed me quickly. ‘You haven’t done anything wrong. I mean –no. I’m not going to be responsible for you losing your job. I’m not going to drag you down. I’m not going to hold you back.’
‘You’re not—’
‘I know it’s not my fault, Jonah.’ She pulled my cardigan around her shoulders. ‘But if I just roll over and let them do this to you, I’ll never forgive myself. What the university is trying to do is outrageous, and we’re not taking it lying down. Not without a fight. Not without even trying.’
Her phone was sitting on the bedside table. She picked it up. ‘I’m going to call Julia. This whole Renewniversity thing is bullshit. The union must already be moving on it and if there’s a campaign to be a part of, I want to be front and centre.’
‘Are you sure?’ I sat up too. ‘What if it makes things worse? I know things are different now, but the way I got this job was pretty fucking scammy.’
‘It was partner hire. You’re my partner.’
‘Yes, but if anyone found out—’
‘Fisher,’ my bonfire of a bride said acerbically, ‘just because I didn’t know what I was actually proposing when I proposed to you doesn’t mean this wasn’t always real.’
My love for her had been a constant background hum for the last fifteen years, but every so often it flared up so intensely it caused me genuine physical pain.
‘I have a couple of calls to make, actually,’ she said. ‘There’s one other card we might be able to play.’
We’d skipped lunch in our post-town hall paralysis, so I made us an early dinner. I left it simmering on the stove while I waited for Sadie to get off the phone. I opened a bottle of Bibliophile cab sauv to let it breathe and took it out to the balcony, half-sitting, half-collapsing into one of the chairs, despite the icy winter chill.
It was really sinking in now, the implications of what was happening. The wine was breathing much easier than I was.
Sadie was a force of nature. I trusted her – I believed in her – but the university was a brutal neoliberal institution, with very little incentive to listen to anything or anyone.
So no matter how hard she fought it, there was every chance that come the end of semester, I would be saying goodbye to academia. Farewell to my life’s work, the only thing I was even remotely qualified to do.
Who would I be, without it? Who was Jonah Fisher, without the tweed?
‘Oh, you opened some wine,’ Sadie said, stepping out onto the balcony. ‘Bless you, brilliant man.’
I pulled her onto my lap. She kissed me twice, fingers brushing along my beard, before she leant over to fill our glasses.
I let out a long breath. I would be Sadie Shaw’s husband. No matter what happened to me professionally, I would have that. I would haveher.
‘What did Julia say?’ I asked. ‘There’s a plan,’ she replied, clinking her wine glass against mine. ‘I’m not sure how much you’re going to like the plan, but there’s a plan. Cheers.’
‘Cheers. Tell me.’
I would go along with anything she said. Here, sitting on my lap in the dying winter sunlight, wearing one of my cardigans, surrounded by the lush greenery of her herb garden, she was so beautiful.
‘Well, there’s two parts to the plan.’ Sadie took a sip of her wine. ‘The union wants to take this to the media, really whip up some public outrage. We need to take this wide. We need to get coverage into every media outlet there is. TV. Newspapers. Online stuff. Everything.’
She kissed the tip of my nose. ‘But, like, theDaily Mailhasn’t historically been particularly interested in workplace relations stories – people get unjustly fired all the time, right? – so the campaign needs a hook. It needs a narrative. It needs—’
